Clayshire Castle

In my last post I mentioned spending a night in a castle. You can go to ClayshireCastle.com and read all about it. But I thought I would share my more intimate experience. This castle opened around Memorial Weekend of this year in the very county where I live in central Indiana, USA. I just had to spend a night in the closest thing I would ever get to a real castle. So my best friend and I set out on an August evening to find royal lodging in Bowling Green, Indiana. It is a bit off the beaten path but wouldn’t be so hard to find if the local hoods would stop stealing the road signs for souvenirs. You really get the feeling you are traveling through Sherwood Forest along the way. We got lost (no signs) but the locals directed us right to the entrance. Now the lane back through the woods to the castle clearing was probably a mile long. And then we were in awe. We got lucky and received the royal treatment because we were the only guests for the night. We were treated to tea and fresh baked muffins, given the grand tour and told we had the run of the castle all to ourselves. The innkeepers Lord Douglas and Lady Josephine were at our becken call. We took The Enchanted Forest room, just one of five themed rooms offered. Check all that out on their website. Of course, I set out tout de suite to snap as many pics as I could of all the rooms and some of the more detailed pieces the innkeepers chose to authenticate the experience. Now as you can see by the castle’s design, a great hall separates the lodging side of the castle from the innkeepers home inside the castle. We opened the wood shutters on our room to a warm starlit night with only the faint howl of coyotes off in the distance. We were so far out in the middle of nowhere you couldn’t hear sounds from Indiana 46 back in Bowling Green. Our bath had a huge shower with river stones in the floor to massage your feet but I chose the claw foot bathtub. I didn’t realize the free samples on the vanity included bubble bath so I knocked on Lady Josephine’s door to borrow some and she graciously shared her personal favorite. Now my best friend would rather watch Nascar on the TV downstairs in the game room – where we also found the kitchenette, a children’s play room, the Wine Cellar themed room, the exercise room – than dress up like me in the medieval costumes. The next morning, being the only guests, the innkeepers treated us like royalty. The gourmet breakfast even impressed my best friend – and that’s saying A LOT! After breakfast we took a stroll on a trail to a nearby lake before a scheduled open house to the public. In addition to the medieval-style bed and breakfast experience the innkeepers offer special events/attractions. This open house featured medieval re-enactors, “The Sons of Steel.”

My husband is from Germany, and his family lives there. I’m American and never thought I’d see any country other than Canada & Mexico. But we’ve been together now for 12 years, and in that time, I’ve been lucky to travel to Europe and live in Austria for a year. I’m castle crazy, and always take time to visit them when I go to Europe! Each one is unique, with its own unique history. When I was in Europe for a month this past summer, I saw several castles. One of them could only be reached by foot (no tourist buses or cars). I went alone while my husband was giving a lecture at the university. Not a single foreign citizen there. All were Austrian. Anyway, I would find many, many ways to decorate to give it a more authentic feel, but they’ve done a fine job for a US “castle” with modern materials.